Beth Calverley is a poet, performer, creative guide, and founder of The Poetry Machine. Her writing celebrates the weird and wonderful things we do while trying to reach out and express ourselves to others. She specialises in mixed emotions, particularly those strange blends that are instantly relatable. Beth travels to places of work, care, learning and play – from hospitals to weddings, high streets to heritage sites, schools to universities, staff rooms to woodlands – performing, facilitating and co-creating poetry. She also enjoys co-creating poetry online, over the phone, and across the airwaves of national radio.
Beth has been Poet in Residence at University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust since 2019 and collaborates with NHS hospitals across the UK. Previous residencies include Oxford NHS Trust (2020-2024), the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre (2022-2024), Ledbury Poetry House (2021-22), and Bristol Poetry Festival (2021). She has also been a Bristol Life Awards Arts Finalist and a Roundhouse Slam Finalist. She has worked with the BBC, ITV, Sky, Oh Magazine, Ocado Life Magazine, The Prince’s Trust, The National Trust, and many more. Her TEDx talk, Poetry at Work, was described as “beautiful and wise”.
Beth’s debut collection, Brave Faces & Other Smiles (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), explores some of the countless and complex reasons why we smile. Benjamin Zephaniah called it “a great collection with a honest, real theme.” Beth is also part of House of Figs, a music and poetry duo with Beth Roberts. Their gig theatre show The Awkward Guide to Friendship, supported by Theatre Royal Plymouth and Valley Arts, moves audiences to tears of recognition and laughter in theatres, libraries, village halls, and introvert-friendly festival venues.
Image Credit: Thom Bartley
Brave Faces & Other Smiles (Verve Poetry Press, 2020)
This collection takes the umbrella theme of the smile and shares it out among a multiplicity of subjects, moods and meanings. Smiles can be brave, shy, sad, or a lighthouse beam of joy.
Some of the smiles that inspired this collection were contributed by people whom Beth has met on her adventures with The Poetry Machine.